Nirosta Steel

About

Also known as: Steven Hall

Nirosta Steel is the stage name of Steven Hall, a Scottish musician who spent decades making music well off the radar before a 2026 compilation, My Skyscraper, finally pulled him into view. The name comes from the anti rust alloy on the Chrysler Building, which tells you plenty about his love of New York architecture and downtown cool. He was part of the 1980s downtown arts scene in the city and became a frequent collaborator of Arthur Russell, working with him on projects like the disco group Loose Joints. Hall also spent his twenties active in East Asia, teaming up with the Hong Kong theatre troupe Zuni Icosahedron and scoring films in Taiwan. After Russell died in 1992, he started several projects in his honor, including Arthur's Landing, a tribute group made up of Russell's collaborators. His own releases came late: the live album Cool Fire, recorded in a Taiwanese bookstore in 1999, arrived in 2014, followed by Dry Ice in 2017. A member of Chanel Beads stumbled on Cool Fire and passed it to the label ULYSSA, which dug through four decades of unreleased recordings to build My Skyscraper.